Life history pattern and fitness of an endangered Hainan Eld's deer population.

Understanding life history patterns, individual fitness and population fitness can assist with conservation of endangered species. Field data on life history traits (i.e. age specific fecundity, age specific mortality, age at first reproduction, litter size and adult life expectancy) were collected from 121 Hainan Eld's deer (Cervus eldi hainanus Thomas, 1918), an in situ herd of an endemic, rare and endangered cervid inhabiting Bangxi Natural Reserve of Hainan Island, from 1990 to 2002. First, we constructed a dynamic life table to analyze the life history pattern of the population, which showed that the difference between the average lifespan of males and females was not significant (P > 0.05), and that the difference between the average lifespan of the whole Hainan Eld's deer population and that of other Eld's deer populations living in South Asia (P > 0.05), North America (P > 0.05) and Europe (P > 0.05) was not significant. Second, we used individual reproductive success or number of offspring of a male over its lifetime to estimate male individual fitness. Statistic analysis showed that male individual fitness was not significantly correlated with total antler velvet mass. Third, we used the population intrinsic rate of increase to measure population fitness, and population fitness of Hainan Eld's deer was compared with similar indexes of 5 other cervid species. Hainan Eld's deer population fitness index was 0.012, the second lowest value relative to other cervids. Results indicated that this rare species is still endangered and is in need of additional protection.